Toward the new future

Human Life Review, Winter 1999 by McFadden, J P

How long such "curious avoidance" of widespread, illegal infanticide would have continued is impossible to say. But it is altogether fitting that it was a "family" pediatrician (the kind of "old-fashioned" doctor who earned the prestige the profession enjoys) who finally precipitated the current national controversy. The simple facts of the case are now generally known by all concerned, but a brief recapitulation (in laymen's language) may be in order.

On April 9, 1982 (Good Friday, as it happened), a baby boy was born in Bloomington, Indiana. The family pediatrician was summoned, and found that the baby evidently had Down's Syndrome-i.e., he was an "imperfect" child-and that his esophagus was not connected to his stomach. If the latter condition were not corrected, he would certainly die. Few dispute the fact that it could have been easily corrected. The pediatrician, Dr. James Schaffer (he deserves an honorable mention here) expected that the operation would take place, but the mother's obstetrician-whose job was already done-- spoke to the parents, who "agreed" that their baby should die. And little Baby Doe, after six painful days of "treatment" by starvation, did die (he was not even given water; merciful death was hastened by pneumonia caused by corrosive stomach fluids he vomited into his lungs).

Nobody disputes the central truth: Baby Doe was killed because he had Down's Syndrome. Ironically, the hospital pathologist who performed the autopsy flatly stated the truth about that: "The potential for mental function and social integration of this child, as of all infants with Down's Syndrome, is unknown." Thus nobody knows how "imperfect" Doe would have been. But we must assume that his parents decided that his life would not be "meaningful," at least to them.

Dr. Schaffer and others attempted by legal means to save Doe's life, but were thwarted by a judge, who was, incredibly, supported by the Supreme Court of Indiana, which presumably has never read the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. But the attempt produced a furor heard by Ronald Reagan and the by now Surgeon General Koop; the President ordered enforcement of federal regulations protecting the handicapped, and Dr. Koop became a key man in seeing that these "Baby Doe regulations" were enforced.

This bare-bones description of the many-faceted Baby Doe case could of course be greatly expanded (this review has already printed many thousands of words on it), but our point here concerns not the facts of the case but rather the medical profession's reaction to it. Virtually all the major medical organizations and associations quickly and adamantly opposed enforcement of the Reagan Administration's "regs"led by the same American Academy of Pediatrics (supposedly, as Dr. Koop said, the prime "advocate for the lives of children"), which went straight to court in a so-far successful attempt to halt enforcement.

Here again, the details would fill a large book, but they cannot obfuscate the reality: the New Future advocates who now clearly dominate the American medical profession have declared that the old "sanctity of life" ethic is as dead as Doe; that "good medical practice" now includes life-and-death power over patients, and that nobody should interfere with "medical judgments" even when they prescribe what used to be called murder.